


Night Terrors

by Lavender_chan



Series: Tumblr Requests [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, angsty, platonic brolationship, previous genocide run
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7114609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavender_chan/pseuds/Lavender_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans is having a <b>B A D  T I ME</b> and Papyrus is the only one who can help. But where does the nightmare end, and reality stop? Can Papyrus survive the encounter if Sans can't tell what's reality and what's a dream?</p><p><b>Notes:</b> Filled in a trade request for elainapoststhings. This little one-shot ended up a little more serious than I had originally intended, but I hope they enjoy it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Terrors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vienamarie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vienamarie/gifts).



> _Elainapoststhings REQUEST:_
> 
>  
> 
> _I've done some thinking. I know you said you specialize in reader inserts, but I was wondering if you could do something centered around the skelebros? It doesn't have to be fontcest, I was thinking something along the lines of Sans having a particularly nasty night terror, but when Papyrus tries to comfort him **[REDACTED]**_
> 
>  
> 
> Heyya~
> 
> This was a request in my Ask box, from my tumblr: [PurpleUndertaleMom.tumblr.com](http://purpleundertalemom.tumblr.com/). Please, feel free to head there and leave a request yourself!

_His magic thrummed in his ears, drowning out the sound of the gaster blasters, though their light blinded him for a moment. Almost a moment too long; he could barely dodged the blade that swung for him, aiming to kill._

_His skull burned, and his left eye blinked out for a moment, but he pushed on._

Papyrus woke slowly, his body turning slowly over to his side. The darkness of late night is all he could see for a moment, and absently he wondered what had woke him up.

A desperate half-scream came through the wall, and Papyrus sat up on instinct. Sans was having another night terror.

He pushed back the blankets on his bed, and started to get up.

_“frisk, buddy, come on,” Sans was desperate to get through to the kid, but Frisk jumped forward and tried to catch him with the edge of their knife again. The sound of it catching his jacket made him teleport away, putting distance between the two of them before Sans wrapped his magic around Frisk’s bright red soul and changed the gravity on it until Frisk was bouncing off the ceiling and then off a wall, “frisk, please, by asgore, please reset!”_

_The kid didn’t reset; instead, as soon as their soul shattered, they were at the other end of the hall again. It was jarring for Sans to be moved back to his starting point, but he swallowed and walked out to face Frisk._

_He had to jump back when he finally noticed Frisk was running at him, full force, not wanting to talk anymore. How many times had he seen this song and dance? Sans felt like he was trapped now; his fate was sealed._

Papyrus opened the door to Sans’s room and saw the faint glowing of Sans’s magic. The taller skeleton paused for a moment; Sans had never had these night terrors when they were younger. It was like something had crawled inside of his older brother and was holding his nights captive. Papyrus almost felt helpless as he stood in the doorway, hearing the desperate gasps and watching his brother’s form twist under the blankets.

“SANS?” Papyrus’s normally loud voice was lowered.

_For the rest of eternity, until his mind turned to mush, he’d be trapped in this judgement hall with Frisk, and the two of them would continue this fight forever, over and over-_

_Frisk threw his knife, and it slid almost perfectly so that when Sans landed back on his feet, his feet were taken from under him and he fell back, hard, nearly cracking his skull on the floor. A noise of pain left him, but before he could even think to move, to get up, Frisk was over him._

Papyrus could see that Sans hadn’t heard him. His older brother had twisted back onto his back and made a desperately sad noise, a cross between a gasp and a sob, and Papyrus could see the slight glow on Sans’s face from tears.

“SANS, YOU MUST WAKE UP, IT IS SIMPLY A DREAM!” Papyrus raised his voice, reaching out to touch his brother’s chest.

_Frisk’s eyes were blood red, and there was a flush on their cheek from the fighting; what unnerved Sans the most was the wide smile, the one that seemed to stretch up their cheeks in unnatural length. A giggle escaped Frisk’s mouth and Sans saw that they had the knife in their hand again._

_“frisk, don’t,” Sans tried to use his magic, but his eye was extinguished, his magic spent._

_No, that’s not supposed to happen. Every every load, his magic supply was replenished; why was this different? If he didn’t act, Frisk was going to-_

_“You smiley trashbag,” Frisk’s voice was overly childish, but still rasped from underuse, “I’ll kill you and your brother, over and over and over because I can!”_

_They raised the knife and plunged it down, through Sans’s chest._

Papyrus touched Sans’s chest, and in an instant, he knew it was a mistake.

Sans’s eyes suddenly opened wide. A gasp dragged through his teeth. He looked up at Papyrus--except it wasn’t Papyrus. It was Frisk, wide eyed and laughing, knife still in hand. His left eye was on fire with magic, making the room seem brighter than during daylight. There was a surge of magic. The sound of splintered wood before bones tore out of the floor echoed in the room.

They plunged through Papyrus’s clothes. He was impaled through his chest.

Papyrus’s eyes widened. His whole body froze.

Sans finally focused on the here and now. His eyes focusing on Papyrus’s, and finally seeing _what he had done._

Sans felt a scream tear out of him and fresh blue tears poured down his face, giving his haunted eyes a terrifying glow.

Sans jumped up to stand on the bed--he still couldn’t overtake Papyrus’s height doing this, but he was focused on his brother. Papyrus was trembling, his head bowed.

“b-bro! pap!” The raw sound of emotion in Sans’s voice was cut by a half-sob, his hand trembling so bad, he was afraid of touching Papyrus in fear of accidentally hurting him worse.

Worse? _Worse?_

Sans wanted to turn his blasters on himself. How could he make this _worse_? He just...he just…

Suddenly Papyrus straightened, his eyes watching Sans’s with concern.

“BROTHER,” Papyrus didn’t sound winded, or hurt at all and Sans blinked in shock.

He finally lost it, that’s what this was. He’d killed his brother, and now he was going to see Papyrus everywhere, taunting him with what he did-

“CAN YOU PLEASE REMOVE YOUR BONES? THEY ARE UNCOMFORTABLE BETWEEN MY RIBS,” Papyrus motioned to his now ripped t-shirt.

Sans froze, mind and body before his hands shot out and grabbed for Papyrus’s shirt, ripping it in half.

“BROTHER!” Papyrus tried to protest.

It was true. All of the bones that Sans had sent toward Papyrus had somehow--miraculously--missed him completely, and slipped between Papyrus’s ribs; most stopped in the middle of his rib cage, but a few, even more miraculously, slipped between his ribs harmlessly at his back.

Sans started to tremble before he managed to say something.

“s-sorry, pap; lemme help you-”

It was a few minutes of magic manipulation and a little bit of flexibility on Papyrus’s part befor all of the bones had been removed. As soon as Papyrus was free, Sans sank onto the bed and buried his face in his hands, trying to stop the continual flow of tears.

Papyrus watched his brother sink down and hesitated for only a moment before sitting next to Sans, putting his hand on his brother’s back.

Sans froze and almost pulled away, but Papyrus was already speaking.

“SANS, IT WAS JUST A DREAM, BROTHER!” Papyrus’s hand moved up and down comfortably over Sans’s shoulder blade.

The fact that Papyrus had no comment toward what had just happened made Sans say, “pap, i almost gave you a few new permanent bones and your worried about my nightmares? geez, bro…”

Papyrus blinked slowly before his eyes looked down at the floor, where his brother’s attack had broken through, but shrugged easily, “YOU WERE SIMPLY HAVING A BAD DREAM, BROTHER, I UNDERSTAND.”

“paps,” Sans sat up straighter and turned to look at him, a fresh wave of tears leaving his eye sockets, where his glowing eyes had disappeared and all there was inside was the deep void, “it's not something you understand! i almost...i coulda…”

His breath hitched his in his chest and he started to tremble again. Sans felt exhausted--this was the fourth time in three days he’d been woken up from a nightmare, and the third time Papyrus had to be the one to wake him up. Sans’s shoulders slumped and he put a hand over his eyes.

“BROTHER, I WAS NOT HARMED,” Papyrus puffed his chest out, a wide grin on his face, “I. THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN HARMED!”

His frustrations seemed to melt away under his brother’s charm and eternal optimism, but he still hunched in on himself.

Papyrus hesitated, watching the way his brother just seemed to...give up. It made his chest hurt, and he reached out to pluck Sans up from the bed, pulling the smaller skeleton against his chest in a hug.

“SANS, BROTHER, I AM NOT HARMED; AND BESIDES THAT, I AM WORRIED FOR YOU!” Papyrus bumped his forehead against Sans’s, “YOU HAVE NOT SLEPT EASILY THESE PAST THREE NIGHTS; WHAT HAS YOU SO SUDDENLY UPSET?”

Sans leaned into Papyrus’s affection, but closed his eyes tightly at his younger brother’s question. How easy it was to forget that for Papyrus, it was a sudden and horrible change that Sans had started to have these nightmares, but for Sans…

He wanted to curse, but instead it pulled in a ragged breath.

“i dunno, bro,” He lied easily, just like he had for so long; even the guilt of lying to his brother had long since evaporated, “guess i should probably stop having those late night-”

Sans started to pull back and froze before cursing when he saw that he _did_ managed to hurt Papyrus. A small crack was on one of Papyrus’s ribs, near the taller skeleton’s sternum.

“shit, pap, why didn’t you tell me?” He moved to settle in Papyrus’s lap, calling his magic into his fingers before focusing on the power of healing.

Papyrus looked confused before he looked down and saw the wound, but he shrugged easily, “THE GREAT PAPYRUS WOULD NOT BE BROUGHT DOWN BY SUCH A SMALL WOUND; I DON’T EVEN FEEL IT, NYEH HEH HEH!”

Sans was almost justled out of Papyrus’s lap when the taller skeleton threw his chest out in pride, but Sans felt the grin on his face widen a little.

“gee, pap, you’re so cool,” Sans said; and he meant it.

The bone knit itself back together a little slower than Sans would have liked, but he could feel the burn of his eye sockets from exhaustion and knew his magic was suffering for it. If Frisk ended up going through this run as a killer…

Sans wondered if he’d even have the energy to stop them, this time.

Sans leaned forward and rested his forehead against Papyrus’s sternum, and Papyrus stopped laughing almost immediately.

“BROTHER?”

“heh, sorry paps,” Sans hated how weak his voice sounded, “you should probably go back to sleep, though...we got work and all that.”

Papyrus hesitated. Normally, he’d consider his work done in waking his brother up, but there was a tremor in his soul that told him something...something was very wrong with Sans.

“I AM NOT LEAVING, BROTHER!”

Sans tensed, closing his eyes. This was already very different than other timelines. Other than almost killing his own baby brother, now Papyrus wasn’t acting so oblivious. Normally, he’d walk out and leave Sans to the rest of his sleepless night, but now…

“i...i’ll be fine, bro,” He tried to convince both of them with that one.

“DO NOT LIE TO ME, BROTHER,” Papyrus wrapped his arms around Sans again, pulling him into a tight hug, “I WILL NOT LEAVE UNTIL YOU ARE SLEEPING AGAIN.”

The idea of sleeping almost made Sans pull away. He couldn’t go back to sleep and face those nightmares again--he _couldn’t_. He felt himself start to shake harder at the thought of it.

“paps, i…”

“Brother,” Papyrus’s voice was so quiet that Sans jumped and looked up at Papyrus’s face. Papyrus’s eyes were crinkled in worry, looking off to one side, his usual grin small and unsure. It was like seeing behind a curtain he wasn’t supposed to see behind, and it gave Sans a chill, “You have cared for me since before the Great Papyrus can remember; let me take care of you.”

Sans swallowed hard before he felt himself nod slowly, leaning back into his brother’s embrace. It wasn’t an easy drop off into sleep--he jumped awake more than once as Papyrus settled them both in for the night, and once Papyrus had to wake him when his powers flared again--but it was probably the only way Sans would have been able to face the next morning.

The morning Frisk would appear again, and make their choice of how this timeline would flow.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated, and please visit my tumblr: [PurpleUndertaleMom.tumblr.com](http://purpleundertalemom.tumblr.com/) My ask is always open!


End file.
